Tips for keeping your Information Safe on a Flash Drive while Traveling
Personal data security is more than often overlooked when you are on vacation these days. You bring cameras, cell phones, laptops, etc. along with you on your trips to document your travels and take memories home with you. But what many do not realize is that they are a giant bulls-eye for thieves and hackers just asking to get their information stolen.
Thieves love to steal unattended electronics because they know there is a good chance that valuable information will be on them. It could be as simple as contact information, or as valuable as your personal address, business deals, or even your personal identity. When you stop and think about it, that your information can be taken or lost at any moment of your travels, it really does pay to be over caution and protect what is valuable to you the best you can.
Below are some tips on how to keep your information and data safe when traveling.
1. Backup your information. This is a no brainer, but if you were to lose your flash drives containing your information with no backup somewhere, then you lost everything on that drive for good. Backing up your information should always be a priority and should be done before you leave for any trip. There are plenty of backup solutions out there, so do a little research and decide which one is best for you.
2. If you are bringing along with you any electronic device on your trip, such as a laptop or USB flash drive, then make sure it is at least software protected. If you were to lose your flash drive or forget your laptop in a hotel room, there is no way of knowing who looked at your data before you found/retrieved it. But by software protecting your information, even if it is password protected, is at least a step up from leaving your data wide open.
3. If you are carrying real valuable data such as business proposals, or other work related information, it would be best to encrypt your data. Software encryption like TrueCrypt and others offer a great service and definitely make it VERY hard for someone to get access to your data.
Of course perhaps the best way to protect your data is with a flash drive that has hardware encryption. Many companies sell hardware encrypted flash drives in either 128bit or 256bit encryption. Most notably the most secure flash drive on the market is the IronKey USB flash drive. This remarkable flash drive goes well above and beyond what you will probably need to keep your data safe, but extra security wouldn’t hurt.
4. One of the more practical ways of keeping your information safe is to keep it on you at all times. This sounds rather simple, but for important information such as backups of your birth certificates or passports, I would recommend keeping a flash drive on a lanyard and wearing it at all times. Pick pocketing is rather rampant in some countries around the world and it makes your wallet or purse a prime target for thieves. Wallets and purses are in constant use, and may make it hard to backtrack where you think you lost your information.
By actually wearing your information, it is always on you and rather hard to lose track of. Wearing your USB on a lanyard is preferable because it is easy to put on or take off, but very difficult for someone to take it or misplace it without noticing it.
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